by: Capt. Jim Kalvin
The genesis of this column was to share a few true stories from our Southwest Florida waterfront community from days gone by. Hopefully – from time to time – a new arrival will read something that will ignite a spark of interest and set him / her off on a new adventure. Opportunities abound in Southwest Florida, and though the landscape changes from time to time, there is more to do than cruise around and look at the waterfront real estate.
I always looked at a boat – any boat – as a vehicle to take you somewhere special and enable you to do things that you can’t do in your living room or on your pool deck. I never did believe in having a television aboard a boat, and I really don’t understand the need for the galactic digitized stereo systems sported on some of the “party” boats that you run into in the waterways these days.
Alas, the boats have changed, the waterfront has changed, and the boat owners themselves have changed! For example, a lot of folks afloat may not even know that there is such a thing as a VHF radio aboard their vessel. And if they do know about it, some won’t know how to properly use it.
Why should they? We have Sea Tow and Boat U.S., full screen GPS charts with auto-pilot interface, and we have cellular phones. Together, those things make the VHF radio seemingly obsolete. If you have trouble, just call your sea service company of choice, and give them your location. That is, of course, assuming you don’t go out of cell tower range. Out there, it’s a different ballgame.
I’ve seen and known thousands of boaters as they’ve come through my various offices over the decades. They’ve ranged from the novice to the experienced, the humble beginner to the know-it-all, I’ve seen my share of grumps and grouches over the years!
I’ve also had the chance to meet some people that are that one-in-a-million fellow travelers , those who own a boat and ply our waters because that’s just who they are. It’s a part of them and they are as much a part of our cruising community as the water itself. Kind and generous people with a streak of independence that is rare these days.
One such character from my past is the late Jack Rowe. I’ll always remember him fondly as a true Mariner. A self-made Professional, Jack could have had any boat that he wanted. With all of the big fancy sport-fishers of his day available to him, Jack was the Owner and Skipper of “Miss Francis”, a wooden-hulled former commercial trawler that was adapted to do what Jack wanted to do. And that would be to ply the waters of Southwest Florida from Naples to Flamingo, the Keys to the Dry Tortugas. She had a single Ford-Lehman diesel engine with a Borg-Warner transmission.
Jack liked to “get away” from the crowds and the noise, and just “go” (a trait that I shared whole-heartedly)! When I met him, he was in his 70’s, and the biggest problem he and I had was that I was managing Turner Marine’s service office, and boat owners were no longer allowed to work on their own vessels due to the dang new-fangled insurance regulations. He had always performed his own work, and only brought the boat into the yard for things he couldn’t do while the boat was in the water.
He had a slip at the Marina and he was a regular at the coffee bar in the parts department.
One particular day, he came into my office and gave me a “Float Plan”. For new boaters, this is a written itinerary of where you intend to go, for how long, and when you expect to be back. It’s to be left with someone who would know whether or not you had returned when you expected to. As I was at the marina every day, I would know whether or not Jack came back on time.
This was important, as we didn’t have cell phones, and navigational electronics were a developing thing. At that time, Jack had a Loran C – the precursor to the modern-day GPS units. But this piece of equipment was merely an aide to navigation, not a fool-proof trip planner. It gave you compass headings and distance. Period. No maps, no weather, no tracking. And EPIRBS (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons) weren’t a thing yet.
The Float Plan he left had “Miss Francis” heading from Naples to the Dry Tortugas. Jack intended to spend a couple of days fishing, by himself, and return on the 5th or the 6th day, depending on how his ice supply was holding up.
Well, the 5th day came and went, and Jack hadn’t returned. I called the Coast Guard in Ft. Myers Beach that same afternoon and reported him over-due – gave them his intended destination and route. I got a call back in a few hours, and he had been located – in the Dry Tortugas. He had experienced engine troubles, but the weather was fair, he was safe, and he refused any assistance at the time he was contacted via his VHF radio.
Three days later, “Miss Francis” was in her slip when I got to the marina. The weather was deteriorating, and she was salty from stem to stern and loosely tied in her slip. I walked down and saw that Jack was still aboard. He had just woken up, and he was a mess! He was wearing an old tank top that was covered with grease and grime.
His arms were lacerated from his biceps to his finger-tips, and he had a significant cut on his forehead. I instinctively jumped down to the boat to see if he needed help, and he looked at me like I was nuts!
“I’m just a little tired and wore-out, Jim, I ain’t dead for cryin’ out loud!” he said.
I asked him what had happened, and he started to tell the story.
“Well, first off, I left the float plan in the right hands. I was going to call the Coast Guard and report my situation just as they called looking for me. That made me feel good, and I thank you.”
I was beaming with pride. “What happened was, I started losing my transmission as I approached the (Tortugas) bank, but I was closer to the Fort than I was to anyplace else, so I kept going. I had to wait for the engine to cool down before I could trouble-shoot it, but I wound up having to remove the gear box – which wasn’t easy. I ruined my table leg using it as a pry-bar – I’ll need for your carpenter to make me a new one, please, so I took the transmission out and got a ride to Key West with a commercial fisherman. A fella there rebuilt it for me, and 2 days later I caught a ride back out with another fisherman. Then, I had to put it back in, which took me two days.”
I was speechless! He chuckled at my incredulity and kept on going. “Well, now that I was up and running again, I decided I didn’t come this far just to turn around and go back, so I stayed another day to do some fishing. Would’a stayed longer, but this darned weather was moving in and my ice was getting thin, so I had to come home.”
With this, he asked me to secure the boat in the slip, and said, “I think I’ll go home now. I need to rest.”
He thanked me again for my diligence, and off he went. We enjoyed a wonderful working relationship for the balance of my time at the marina. And he will always be remembered fondly by yours truly. He was an old-school Mariner who never had a bad word for anyone or anything, he was the genuine article, and a man that I was proud to have known!
Captain Jim Kalvin is a Florida Native, a retired Marine Contractor, a USCG licensed 100 Ton Master, and a licensed Guide. He is available for private charters, vessel deliveries, and Consulting on your waterfront property needs. He can be reached at 239-427-6344, or at jimkalvin@yahoo.com